The Great Revolt Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  A Selection of Titles From Paul Doherty

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Historical Note

  Part One

  Part Two

  Part Three

  Part Four

  Part Five

  Author’s Note

  A Selection of Titles from Paul Doherty

  The Canterbury Tales Mysteries

  A TOURNAMENT OF MURDERS

  GHOSTLY MURDERS

  THE HANGMAN’S HYMN

  A HAUNT OF MURDER

  THE MIDNIGHT MAN *

  The Brother Athelstan Mysteries

  THE HOUSE OF CROWS

  THE ASSASSIN’S RIDDLE

  THE DEVIL’S DOMAIN

  THE FIELD OF BLOOD

  THE HOUSE OF SHADOWS

  BLOODSTONE *

  THE STRAW MEN *

  CANDLE FLAME *

  THE BOOK OF FIRES *

  THE HERALD OF HELL *

  THE GREAT REVOLT *

  * available from Severn House

  THE GREAT REVOLT

  Paul Doherty

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This first world edition published 2016

  in Great Britain and the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  Trade paperback edition first published 2016 in Great

  Britain and the USA by SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  eBook edition first published in 2016 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2016 by Paul Doherty.

  The right of Paul Doherty to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the Biritsh Library

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-086-7 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-568-8 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-764-6 (e-book)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents

  are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described

  for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are

  fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

  business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,

  Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  To Martin and Lynn Williams at Chingford; excellent friends and the most genial company.

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  England’s royal family has endured a bloody and twisted history. In 1326 Edward II of England was deposed and allegedly murdered in Berkeley Castle on the orders of his wife Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer. Edward II was buried at Gloucester, where his splendid tomb can still be visited. However, this magnificent monument masks one of the most tangled mysteries in the history of the English crown, a mystery which continued to surface long after the hurling days of 1326 had come and gone. Edward II was succeeded by his warlike son Edward III, whose successor, Richard II, became immersed in the tragic and violent fate of his great-grandfather, Edward II …

  PART ONE

  ‘John Ball Greets You All Well.’

  (The Letters of John Ball)

  Athelstan, Dominican friar and parish priest of St Erconwald’s in Southwark, moved restlessly. He breathed a prayer for help against the horrors he half-suspected lurked behind the door, now being forced, on the upper gallery of the guesthouse at Blackfriars. Athelstan swallowed hard and stared at the wall painting to the right side of the door. In the circumstances, the painting was most appropriate. The artist, whoever it was, had certainly caught the present times. The wall fresco depicted the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah, cities of the plain, which tumbled from God’s grace into the deepest destruction. The painting presented a vivid scene of divine wrath: all the elements of nature running riot, the black-horizoned landscape glowing with flame. Strife held sway over raging hordes of warriors bristling with weapons. Fiery furnaces and hellish volcanoes burnt fiercely, the blackness beyond them constantly pricked with globes of light which illuminated fang-faced demons armed for war.

  ‘Do you fear the worst, Brother Athelstan?’

  ‘Certainly, Procurator General.’

  Matteo Fieschi, Procurator General of the Dominican Order, was deeply agitated. He was a small tub of a man, with a smooth Italianate face, round, expressive eyes, snub nose and the soft, pursed lips of a lady, an individual most delicate in his gestures and movements. Procurator Matteo had now been joined by his two assistants, Brothers Cassian and Isidore, young Dominicans, tall and slender, with clean-shaven, intelligent faces and sharp, hawk-like eyes. Athelstan had quickly learnt how their master’s mood and every whim governed their conduct. Now was no different.

  Prior Anselm’s guests were clearly agitated on this morning of 12 June, the year of Our Lord 1381, the Feast of St Sempronius. They had good cause to be: their colleague and comrade Brother Alberic, secretary to the Procurator General, had failed to attend Divine Office in the main church or gather with the rest to break his fast on honeyed oatmeal in the refectory below. Anselm, Prior of Blackfriars, had been summoned, Athelstan too. He now watched his superior direct lay brothers hammering at the heavy, elmwood door with their mallets, aiming at the leather hinges as the door appeared to be securely locked and bolted from within. Knocking and shouting had failed to arouse Alberic. The door was to be forced and Athelstan steeled himself against what might lie beyond. On so many occasions the friar had waited for this chamber or that room to be forced to reveal some gruesome murder. Was this about to happen now? But why? The delegation from Italy had arrived in the city ten days ago, ostensibly to meet with King Richard on ‘Coronae secreta negotia – Secret business of the Crown’, only to be swept up in the Great Revolt which now threatened to engulf London.

  Athelstan closed his eyes and prayed earnestly for help. He sighed and opened his eyes, then stared again at the wall painting of Sodom and Gomorrah being consumed by fire. London was facing the same fate. Two peasant armies now massed outside London; the men of Essex to the north at Smithfield, and Kentish men to the south at Greenwich. It was only a matter of days before they united. They would then sweep through Southwark where they would be joined by Athelstan’s parishioners, led by Watkin the dung-collector, Pike the ditcher, Ranulf the rat-catcher and all their cunning coven. These miscreants now openly proclaimed they were Upright Men, stalwart supporters of the Great Community of the Realm, that mysterious, almost invisible organisation dedicated to violent revolution; the overturning of both crown and church, the toppling of prince and prelate, the destruction of the great Whore of Babylon, namely London, and the setting up of a new Jerusalem. A new commonwealth would be created where land and property were held in common and all were equal before God and the law.

  Athelstan scraped his sandalled foot in frustration. He did not care for such ma
ke-believe, ale-fumed dreams which, he feared, would end in hangings and disembowellings on execution platforms dripping with gore, beneath gaunt scaffold branches and gallow ladders black against the sky. The head-severing block, the axe, the tumbril and all the horrid impedimenta of brutal, judicial death carried out to the bitter, anguished cries of widows and orphans, would be the order of the day.

  ‘Satan sets up banquets at such times and in such places …’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Brother Athelstan?’

  The friar smiled his apologies at Prior Anselm.

  ‘Father, my apologies,’ Athelstan whispered, ‘but I am so deeply worried. You summoned me here six days ago and I am now anxious about my parishioners …’ Athelstan was momentarily distracted by a clatter on the stairs and the sudden appearance on the top step of the royal courier. Master Luke was staying at Blackfriars on the orders of the King, so he could take messages to and from Procurator Matteo. In the end, however, the King’s messenger had also been caught up by the turmoil in the city and forced to shelter in Blackfriars. The messenger, his handsome face framed by blonde hair, stared quickly around, grimaced and promptly disappeared down the stairs.

  There was a sudden crack. The door was buckling. The top hinge had snapped. The lay brothers were now battering at the bottom one, which abruptly broke loose. The door was forced back. Prior Anselm hurried to go around it, followed by the Procurator General and his escort. Athelstan heard their cries and exclamations and hastened to join them, stepping around the door into the cavernous guest room: a gaunt, stark chamber with only the narrowest lancet window providing light, a few meagre sticks of furniture, a simple cot-bed, a table, two stools and a chair. The lanternhorn on its rest was extinguished and the candles on their spigots had long guttered out. Brother Alberic lay twisted on the floor, head slightly back, eyes eerily glassy in their soulless stare. The cause of death was a deep dagger wound to the chest, close to the heart. The weapon itself, its blade stained with dried blood, lay next to the dead man’s half-curled, stiffened fingers.

  ‘This is your domain, Athelstan,’ Prior Anselm whispered. ‘You are most skilled in such matters.’

  ‘In such matters?’ the Procurator General snapped.

  ‘I shall explain later,’ Anselm retorted. ‘Brother Athelstan, please …?’

  ‘All of you,’ Athelstan gestured gently with his hands, ‘stay back. Do not touch anything, I beg you.’

  Reluctantly, Fieschi obeyed. The prior also ordered the lay brothers who’d forced the door to stand outside. They would keep other members of the community at bay and curb their curiosity about the abomination which had occurred in their friary. Athelstan asked for a candle to be lit, waiting until the flame glowed beneath its cap.

  ‘Very well.’ Athelstan crouched down, placing the candle on the floor beside the corpse. ‘First the rite.’ The friar blessed the corpse. He whispered the ‘Absolvo te’ giving absolution, followed by the swift anointing of Alberic’s forehead, eyes, lips, hands, chest and feet.

  ‘Good,’ Athelstan breathed. ‘So first. The corpse is cold and rigid, yet in places …’ He touched the dead man’s right hand, ‘beginning to soften again. The face is shocked and livid, eyes staring, mouth agape. Bloodstains to the lips and chin but this is dried as, in the main, is the heart’s blood on his chest. Brother Alberic is dressed in the black and white robe of our order with no ornamentation. He wears outside sandals on his feet. When did you see him last?’ Athelstan glanced up at Fieschi.

  ‘Last night, an hour after Compline. We all shared a jug of your mead along with chopped bread and meat in the refectory.’

  ‘And he seemed well?’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘And how old was Brother Alberic?’

  ‘Just past his thirty-fifth year.’

  ‘Young, vigorous,’ Athelstan murmured. He felt the hard muscle of the dead man’s right arm. ‘A former swordsman?’

  ‘Very much so,’ Fieschi replied. ‘A former knight in the service of the Visconti of Milan. A soldier of fortune who experienced a road to Damascus vision. He saw the error of his ways, converted and became a Dominican priest.’

  ‘Faithful in his vows?’

  ‘Usque ad mortem,’ Brother Cassian declared lugubriously. ‘Faithful even until death. Alberic was a true friar, a chaste priest, a loyal son of S. Dominic.’

  Athelstan rose to his feet and asked for more candles to be brought, lit and placed in a circle on the table. Conscious of the others watching him, he picked up the dagger and scrupulously examined it in the flaring light of the candles. An old weapon, he observed, its long double blade encrusted with blood from top to hilt.

  ‘What is this?’ Athelstan gestured to the others to draw closer and inspect the dagger.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Prior Anselm declared. ‘I have never seen the likes before.’ His remark was echoed by the others. Athelstan placed the dagger on the table, took the candle and crouched down to scrutinise the floor. He detected traces of blood on the rope matting stretched across the polished open boards, though no blood on the door. Ignoring the growing murmur of whispered conversation around him, he studied the heavy door. He noted how the bolts at the top and the bottom had been ruptured, along with the simple but heavy locking device, the key still twisted within. The chamber door could also be opened on a chain, so the person within could first check any visitor; this too had been in place when Alberic was mysteriously killed, the chain obviously snapped when the door was forced.

  ‘Did anyone visit Brother Alberic?’ Athelstan asked, staring down at the harsh, raw-boned face of the dead man. ‘I mean, after you left the refectory yesterday evening?’ Murmured denials greeted his question.

  ‘Prior Anselm,’ Fieschi protested. ‘Must we be questioned like this?’

  ‘Yes!’ Athelstan did not wait for his prior’s response. ‘Yes, you must! A human being has been foully murdered. I had little to do with poor Alberic but I respect him for what he was, not just for what he did. He was a comrade, a brother in our order, a priest with the power to absolve sin and to change bread and wine into the body of our Risen Christ. So yes, you must, I must, we must, all be questioned. Is that clear?’ Athelstan caught himself and decided to say no more. He was aware of how tired he was. Worries nagged at him about the safety of his parishioners, his good friend the widow Benedicta and, above all, his bosom comrade Sir John Cranston, one of only a few crown officials who had not abandoned his post and fled. Outside a violent storm was swiftly gathering, threatening to engulf those Athelstan loved and cared for.

  ‘Pax et bonum.’ Fieschi held up a hand. ‘Athelstan, my apologies, I am just distraught.’ He and Athelstan exchanged the kiss of peace. The clamour from outside had grown. Prior Anselm stepped around the door and the noisy chatter immediately subsided.

  ‘Continue, Athelstan,’ Anselm instructed as he re-entered the chamber.

  ‘Very well. Brother Alberic was a former soldier,’ Athelstan declared, ‘vigorous and strong. He apparently left the guesthouse refectory last night and came up here, where he locked, bolted and chained the chamber door. He should have been secure, safe from danger, but he certainly was not. He was brutally stabbed to the heart with an ancient-looking dagger which no one recognises. More mysterious is that this murderous assault was perpetrated in a locked room with no sign of any other entrance, no secret passageway, and there is more.’

  Athelstan knelt beside the corpse and pulled back the robe to examine the dead man’s legs. He then folded back the sleeves, scrutinising the arms, wrists and hands of the cadaver most diligently. ‘Strange, most strange,’ he murmured, ‘no sign, not even a scratch of any struggle or challenge.’ Athelstan glanced up. ‘A vigorous man, as I have said, a former soldier. Surely he would have resisted and there would be some evidence of this?’ He got to his feet. ‘Are we to believe that this experienced fighter allowed someone to approach him with a naked dagger and thrust it deep inside him, but not react? No evidence of a strug
gle, nothing overturned. Of course, that prompts the most pressing question: why?’ He paused as Procurator Fieschi walked across to the far wall where cloaks and robes hung from the pegs; boots, sandals and a leather chancery satchel rested beneath. ‘Procurator?’ Athelstan called out.

  Fieschi lifted a hand in acknowledgement; he knelt, picked up the chancery satchel, opened it and swiftly searched its contents. He rose as Athelstan walked over to him.

  ‘Brother,’ Fieschi murmured, ‘nothing is out of place, except …’ He opened the chancery satchel to reveal a roll of parchment, an ink horn, pumice stone, sander and a collection of quill pens. ‘Something is missing.’

  ‘What?’ Athelstan asked.

  ‘A leather schedule fashioned out of the purest Moroccan; it should be here. It contained certain documents in Alberic’s care. Now they have gone.’

  ‘What were they?’ Athelstan demanded.

  ‘At the moment,’ Fieschi glanced over his shoulder at his two companions, ‘I cannot say. No, I cannot say any more.’

  ‘And neither can I,’ Athelstan retorted. ‘Prior Anselm, Alberic’s corpse should be removed to the death house.’

  Anselm left the room. Athelstan stared round. Fieschi was correct, he reflected: nothing was out of place. The bed was undisturbed, made up and neat, the candle-stool beside it hadn’t been moved, the three-branched spigot and psalter were placed orderly together. Athelstan walked over and picked up the psalter, but it was only a copy borrowed from the friary chapel and contained nothing significant. He carefully examined the stoppered jar of fresh water on its tray along with two pewter cups, but he could detect nothing amiss. Everything was as it should be except for that corpse sprawled gruesomely on the floor.

  ‘But how can it be?’ Athelstan whispered hoarsely. He paused as three Dominicans came in unannounced. Athelstan smiled as he recognised two of the priory’s most senior friars – Brother Hugh, the infirmarian, and Matthias, chief clerk and scribe – and their usual shadow, the gatekeeper, lay brother John. Old men, but wiry and alert. John was the shortest of the three: almost bald, with a ruddy face, his nose broken and twisted, a relict, so he boasted, of his turbulent youth. Hugh and Matthias looked alike: tall and slender with close-cropped white hair, their faces lined and furrowed but their eyes sharp, bright with life. Each man had a dimple in his chin, which offset the rather severe cast of the firm mouth and high cheekbones.